


Animal Heart

by morgan2411



Category: Marvel, X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Fanfiction, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25213816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgan2411/pseuds/morgan2411
Summary: Judy Clarke is a mutant who can transform into animals. Follow her on her journey to find herself and seek out her destiny as she joins the X-Men and fights by their side against all kinds of evil.
Relationships: Logan (X-Men)/Reader
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	1. Rising from the Ashes

Born in 1625 in East Anglia, she was a well-renowned healer. Because of this, and the fact that she never married, she became an object of suspicion for Matthew Hopkins, one of the most famous witch-hunters of the time. He was the Witchfinder General, and in 1645, Judith was his next target. 

Judith struggled against the ropes that bound her to the wooden stake, the logs and twigs digging into her feet. Could it be true? She thought. Could I really be a witch? She had hardly ever thought of witches, or anything or the sort, and certainly never thought she'd be tried as one. But perhaps there was a bit of evil inside of her, that only certain people could see.

"Judith Amelia Clarke," Matthew Hopkins boomed as he read from a scroll, "You are suspected of being a witch, including possessing magical abilities and practicing witchcraft. Because of the nature of your magic, the community has no choice but to subject you to a special kind of trial - that of burning at the stake, as opposed to drowning or hanging. How do you plead?" 

"Not guilty!" She cried, tears running down her face as she faced the man that held her life in his hands. "Alas! I have never known witchcraft, or magic - or anything or the sort!"

"Very well, witch," Hopkins smirked. "If you are indeed a witch, then these flames will not harm you - and you shall be subjected to a variety of torture methods, until you give up the names of everyone else in your evil cult. And if you are a God-fearing woman, then, alas, the flames must consume you as we watch on helplessly - such is the way of fire." 

Judith slumped forward, sobbing, as her struggling was rendered useless. Hopkins stepped forward with a giant torch, which was dancing with flame at its top. As he tilted the torch towards the bundle of kindling, he turned his head and murmured in her ear, "May God have mercy on your wicked soul." He stepped away from the stake, leaving his words echoing in her mind as the first of the flames consumed the branches. 

Judith could do nothing but tilt her head towards the darkening sky and plead to God as she sensed the flames creeping closer to her bound feet. She let out a scream as she felt the first tinge of pain on her feet, and writhed, her head still flung towards the sky. And soon, her whole world was on fire - everything she'd ever known was lost in pain and agony. She heard nothing except the roar of the merciless flames and her own screams, while the flames crept higher and higher along her body. An eternity passed. She should have been dead by now.

Except she wasn't. Gasping through the smoky air, she gazed through the flames to see her body - and she saw something impossible. Instead of seeing the flesh of her torso, arms and legs melting away to the bone, she witnessed her skin healing itself, and then melting away again, and so on. Her whole body was melting and healing, melting and healing. 

Something like defiance came over Judith, and she managed to spy Hopkins through the orange and yellow. Even with smoke and flames clouding her vision, the shock and anger was clear on his face. "Witch!" He bellowed. 

She screamed once more. This time, it was with triumph, not pain, although the latter had not yet receded - and instead of a helpless cry towards the heavens, it was a shriek at the face of evil - the face of the Witchfinder General. For she knew now that she was indeed a witch.

Through her pain, as the flames began to die down, she managed to come to the conclusion that she could not stay here. Even if her powers made her invincible, she did not know what else she could do, or how long she could be tortured - and she certainly couldn't continue being a healer. The whole area would know she was a witch. Her only option was to escape, like a bird. She glanced up longingly at the sky again, through waves of pain and tears that stung her eyes. 

Suddenly, Judith felt an intense sensation throughout her body that stood out from the pain. It felt like being stretched and compressed both at once, along with a sense of nausea. She was shrinking - she was dying. Perhaps this was the end, after all. 

But no - she was still alive. And she was free from the ropes, as her skin had been replaced by sleek black feathers. Without a second thought, she spread her new wings and soared toward the open sky - towards freedom. Shouts came from below, and Judith glanced down with new eyes to see the people, including Hopkins, yelling and pointing. Some of them surrounded the stake, now smouldering with ash, to search for any sign of what had happened. 

But it was too late. Shaking leftover ashes and embers from her new body, Judith turned her head and flew away.


	2. A New Beginning

_The year is 1962, and Judy had just betrayed the Brotherhood on the beach in Cuba. She could still feel the sting of Azazel's sharp tail in her back as she stumbled towards the yellow-vested mutants. Azazel had known she would heal, but he'd wanted her to feel the pain of being back-stabbed._

_"No, don't move him!" Judy yelled as she fell on her knees before the telepath they called Charles, who was whimpering in pain. The young mutants behind her gasped in awe as they witnessed the wound in her back slowly healing. "It's alright", she said. The blue creature and the woman let her assess Charles' injuries._

_"How do we know we can trust you?" The creature growled._

_"Because you have no choice," she replied. She carefully lifted Charles into her arms and carried him towards the now-ruined jet._

The meek-looking woman with brown hair who stood behind Charles as he sat in his new wheelchair narrowed her eyes at Judy. The former hadn't shown her powers in front of Judy yet. The latter leaned forward, his chin resting in his hand as he narrowed his blue eyes at Judy. He was kind, she knew - he was like a father to the other mutants. On the couch next to Charles and the woman, two teenagers sat side by side. The shy redhead; he was Banshee, and the cheeky blond was Havoc. "If you ever want to find your friends, you'll need me."

Charles waved his hand. "I have no interest in seeking out Raven and Erik. If they want to come back, they will," grief shone in his eyes, but he forced a polite smile. "I'd much rather focus on the school. You've proven yourself worthy in Cuba, Judy, and you deserve a place here."

"Thank you." She replied. And she meant it. But then Charles' face turned serious. 

"Just know that if you ever take advantage of our kindness, you'll be betraying not only us, but mutants as a whole." 

"I know." She nodded. 

"And now, Judy...we'd all appreciate it if you told us just how, exactly, you got mixed up with the Brotherhood. Start from the beginning, please."

"The very beginning?" She raised a dark eyebrow. It was a lifetime ago. Several long lifetimes ago.

"Yes."

She sighed. But she signed up for this the moment she made the decision to switch alliances in Cuba. In the Brotherhood, they didn't care what you'd gone through - they only cared that you remained loyal to them and their cause.

"I was born in sixteen twenty-five, in East Anglia." And she told the five mutants of her career as a healer, how her powers didn't show themselves until she was burned at the stake by Matthew Hopkins. How she flew away in the form of a crow, after her skin and flesh had regenerated. She'd flown all the way to London, almost non-stop, and lived there relatively well-off except for the nightmares that plagued her mind each and every night. Nightmares of fire, embers and ash. She returned to East Anglia briefly, two years after escaping, only to creep into Hopkins' home in the form of a spider, and brutally maul him as a lion. 

Judy recounted how she'd lived as a wealthy nurse in London for almost three centuries, both feared for her immortality, and respected for her intelligence and talents. She brought her talents into both the World Wars, healing thousands of wounded soldiers. And then, one fateful winter in 1955, there was a knock on her door, and she met the only others of her kind as far as she knew. They called themselves the Brotherhood, and, no matter what they stood for, Judy knew then that she wasn't alone.

"I'd begun questioning the Brotherhood ever since they found out about all of you," she gestured around the room. "And I began questioning my own loyalty," she fidgeted with the end of her shift dress. 

"I always thought that mutants were one group, as a whole, and I simply had to find that group to be fulfilled. But now I know that isn't true. Even among mutants, there's different ideas about what's right and what's wrong," Judy finished. She blushed. She felt like a storyteller at kindergarten, but she'd done what Charles had told her to do.

Silence filled the spacious room at her final words, and she felt five pairs of eyes gazing at her with curiosity. The silence not only allowed them to take in what she'd said, but also let her realise the significance of what she'd done. She'd just spilled her guts, told her entire life story to people she barely knew. But it was a fair price to pay for what she'd come here for - a new life, a new family, a new purpose. 

* * *

An hour later, Judy gazed down from the balcony at Charles as he placed his fingers on Moira's head while they kissed in the shade of the trees. So she was a human, not a mutant. Good for her. It better was for someone like her to forget all she'd witnessed, anyway. 

Judy turned her head from the pair, to the view on her left. The late afternoon wind ruffled her black feathers. 

She sensed someone behind her, and turned to find the blue mutant. She'd learned that his name was Hank McCoy, and he was some sort of scientist. He raised a bushy blue eyebrow at her crow form, then gave an awkward, fanged smile of recognition. As he walked up next to her and rested his large hands on the rail, she hopped down. She shifted back while she was in the air, feeling the now-familiar-but-still-odd sensation as she managed to gracefully land on her bare human feet. 

"Impressive," Hank said. 

Judy mocked a bow, smirking. After their little meeting, she'd exchanged her shift dress, which had been half covered in blood, for some of Raven's clothes which had been given to her by Charles. She'd also taken a long, much-needed shower, and now her dark hair hung in damp waves across her shoulders. She felt lighter, like she was already living a brand-new life. 

Now, she was overcome with curiosity about the young man next to her. She rested her left elbow on the rail while supporting her head with her left fist, and cocking an eyebrow at Hank. 

She couldn't stop the next words that came out of her mouth: "Were you always like this?" She gestured to his body.

He started to growl, but Judy added, "I don't mean to be rude. It was a genuine question."

His face softened. Well, as much as it could soften while he had fangs, anyway. "It's alright," he replied. "I used to look normal. Except I had massive feet, I mean, like...with claws instead of toes. So I developed a serum that would make me fully normal. Except it didn't work, and..." this time it was his turn to gesture to himself. "...well. When I revealed myself to the others like this, Raven told me that this is my true self. But even now, I don't believe her.

"I'm going to try to make another serum. One that makes me normal, or at least back to my old self Anything's better than...what I am now."

Judy felt a swell of respect for Hank. "I know what it's like to not feel comfortable in my own skin. But we have no way of knowing which version of ourselves is the best...until we try them all."

She turned away from him, and her eyes fell on Charles as he wiped his tears while watching Moira walk away. "And until you know who you truly are...all power to you."


	3. Shadow

_It's 1970, shortly after many of the male students and teachers were drafted into the Vietnam War. Today is the day when the remainder of the students and teachers left. Every last one of them._

Standing in the middle of the grand staircase, Judy waved goodbye to the last student as he walked out the front door. She slowly sank to the stairs and rested her head on the rail, her hands around her ankles. 

In came Charles from outside, where he'd been saying goodbye to the last of them. He had dark shadows under his eyes, and traces of facial hair. Spotting Judy, he said, "You know, I'd be lying if I said I didn't want you and Hank to stay here, but I wouldn't blame you if you left. There's no reason to stay."

Judy furrowed her brows at his first words, but before he'd even finished the last sentence, she'd begun shaking her head. "Don't be ridiculous, Charles," she smiled as he stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "There _is_ a reason: it's you. You gave me a home and a family when I needed it the most. So I'm staying. And I'm sure Hank is, too."

A tear rolled down Charles' face, and Judy got the feeling he'd been holding it back for a while. Judy got up, descended the stairs and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, then helped him up the stairs. Once they reached the top, she leaned down and kissed the top of his head. "I'd be a fool if I left my friends."

* * *

One year later

Judy helped Charles into his bed, her sensitive nose filled with the stench of alcohol and old clothes. The moonlight shone through the window, illuminating his greasy hair, bloodshot eyes and ever-growing facial hair. 

"Judy," he mumbled drunkenly, "will you tell me a story?" 

She gazed down at the pitiful man, a shadow of the charming one who'd founded the school. It had only been a few years, but he seemed decades older. Erik and Raven's betrayal, and the school closing down, had finally taken its toll on the poor man in the form of countless lonely nights of drinking. This wasn't what Judy had envisioned when she wanted a true family. But the man had shown her a new way of life, a group of mutants who could live peacefully without a sinister goal. Plus, he had used his powers to rid her of the bulk of the nightmares that had previously plagued her sleep. Even if that wasn't enough to get rid of the voices in his head.

She smiled. "Alright, Charles." And she told him of the time she dressed up as a man to fight in World War One. 

Once he started snoring, Judy collected several of the empty whiskey bottles lying around, and left the room. She looked back just once, as Charles slept peacefully without the burden of his powers.

Hank caught up with her as she walked down the dim hallway. "How is he?" 

She turned to face the gentle man she'd grown accustomed to, while she taught by his side during the active years of the school. "The same," she replied, smiling sadly. Hank sighed, and the pair walked to the kitchen together. 

Judy threw out the empty bottles, poured two glasses of water and sat across from Hank at the kitchen table. "What are we going to do about him?" She asked, pushing one of the glasses to his side. 

When the much younger man raised a dark eyebrow, she said, "I realise I sound like his mother. But he can't keep going like this. He needs to _hope_ again."

"I know," Hank responded. "I'll try to ease him off the serum, or at least get him to take smaller doses. But for now...all we can do is be there for him."


End file.
